


Future

by narsus



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Melancholy, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 00:31:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narsus/pseuds/narsus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is what it is and it’s about time that Captain America caught up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The Avengers belongs to Marvel Studios, Joss Whedon and others.

The future changes everything Steve notes. It’s changed all expectations. It’s even, finally, changed him. He’s had yet another fight with Tony over something, something minor, something that hardly even matters to either of them. And it’s been enough to drive him away. He’s allowed it to be enough. Another fight, another night he’s fled the tower, but this time the future has changed even that action. He doesn’t just get on his bike and ride this time. This time he takes the credit card Tony gave him, deliberately leaving a trail to follow, and gets on a plane. He doesn’t go far, he can’t, something might happen and he has no real idea where to go. So he goes as far as Boston, a moment in Tony’s past, checks in to a hotel and waits. Tony can find him if he wants.

He spends the night sleeping fitfully.

Morning comes and he finds himself staring out of the windows at the cityscape spread out in front of him. He daren’t sit alone in his room so, reasonably he tells himself, he heads across the executive lounge where they’re serving breakfast and the news plays in a steady drone behind him. He’s half way though his breakfast, staring out of another set of windows, at the city that’s constructing itself on the harbour front, when it suddenly occurs to him that, at last, he’s changed as well. Steve Rogers is, so they say, a simple man, with simple, home grown, American, values. He values hard work and honesty. He doesn’t cheat or steal. He’s one of the good, honest, common men that have made this country great. He’s also sitting in the executive lounge of a luxury hotel, eating his breakfast and wondering if Tony has ever considered investing in real estate.

He feels only a passing, numb, curiosity at the situation.

Tony sends the Stark Jet for him but no message. In an earlier era Steve might have gone back. In another time he might have called Tony to demand an explanation, and perhaps an apology, but the past is past and Steve Rogers is not the same man he once was. He sends the plane back almost casually, as if he’s been doing things like this all his life.

He lets Tony buy him dinner when the other arrives that evening.

Everything has changed and the proliferation of stars and stripes on every street corner can’t hide that fact. The America of the twenty-first century isn’t the America of the forties. And Steve is in no position to judge either way. It is what it is and it’s about time that Captain America caught up.


End file.
